


Take Your Own Advice

by coinshotmisting



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other characters might show up eventually, University coffee shops slap, probably unfinished, you know I'm hitting that trifecta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29790606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coinshotmisting/pseuds/coinshotmisting
Summary: Every good story needs a modern coffee shop AU.The Sunmaker Library at Kholin State University is home to one of the least busy coffee shops on campus. Shallan just transferred here, and could use a quiet place to study that isn't her 5 by 10 dorm. Adolin is looking for somewhere to go when he's done hanging out with his usual friends and their antics. And Kaladin more or less just just wants to work his way through the semester.They are all also incredibly bisexual. All of the time. Hope you enjoy!
Relationships: Shallan Davar/Kaladin/Adolin Kholin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	Take Your Own Advice

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! This is an odd little fic, because I Cannot bring myself to work on it. I had plans to actually write this one out, but just cant find the motivation. So I figured instead of letting it be forgotten somewhere in my hard drive, I'd just put it out here for anyone who wants to read it. If you enjoy it, please let me know, some feedback might be just what I need to actually write (no promises though). 
> 
> A few content warnings, this does portray characters struggling with mental illness, though its probably less intense than canon. Shallan has severe anxiety instead of DID, because this was written pre-RoW, and I don't trust myself to rewrite in some representation for systems. Also, there's some light mention of your standard Rosharan eye color based racism, seeing how much it impacts Kaladin's life. Aside from that, this is pretty much just a soft little introduction to the characters, setting up a story I never got around to writing. 
> 
> Sorry again, but I hope you enjoy what there is!

This felt like Shallan’s second freshman year. And, if she was being honest? That sucked. Being a freshman was all about new opportunities, and joining clubs, and making new friends, and being utterly lost on campus, and crippling anxiety 24/7, and… Well, for some people freshman year was fun. For her, it was hell. That first semester especially, when you were dumped onto a new campus with literally zero reference other than google maps and a class schedule.

_OK Shallan, calm down. It’s gonna be fine! You survived this once, you can do it again!_

_Yeah, but last year I was in community college, within driving distance from home. Now, I’m not even in Jah-Keved. Oh Almighty, what am I even doing, its gonna be so embarrassing when I have to go back home halfway through the semester._

_No. That not an option. I mean, it is, but I’m not gonna do that. Its OK if I even fail classes or whatever. I just need to make it through the semester._

Shallan, needless to say, was on the fence about Kolin State University. It was probably one of the best schools in western Roshar (which wasn’t saying a ton, but Shallan wasn’t about to learn a new language just to go to school in Azir). But that didn’t make her any more excited about the massive storming campus that laid just outside the door of her tiny dorm room. She was just thankful that the University accommodations had given her a room all to herself, leaving the second bed crammed into the corner, empty. She didn’t need someone else in here watching her freak out over nothing.

And honestly, it really was nothing. She had already gotten through that weird introduction week while everyone moved in, where she had pretended she was fun and social, and suggested that she would _totally_ show up to a couple dozen events. And she had survived the first week of classes just fine. But now it was Saturday, she had no plans, and literally no clue what to do all day.

She had woken up at 11:00, grabbed an early lunch at one of the dining halls, and come back here. Up to this point she had planned on staying in her dorm and working on homework until she came up with something else, or got hungry again and migrated down to the dining hall to work. But she wasn’t anywhere near hungry, and she had barely opened her laptop before she felt the beige cinder block walls closing in on her.

_Technically, I think you’re allowed to sit in the dining hall even if you don’t get any food._

_I think._

_They’re not gonna kick me out either way, and it’s not like it’s gonna be full at…_

She checked her phone, and had to resist the urge to throw it at the wall.

_4:00 pm? How is it only 4?_

_But if I want to work in the dining hall, I’ll have to walk past all the serving people without getting any food._

_So?_

_So… so what if they think I’m too picky, or weird, or…_

_Ok, this is going nowhere. Executive decision, I’m going somewhere other than the dining hall._

But where?

Shallan scoured her mind for any locations she knew on campus where she could sit and work for a few hours but was coming up mostly blank. She didn’t want to head to any of the classroom buildings, she spent enough time in those over the past week. And other than those, the dinning hall, and her dorm, she hadn’t really been anywhere else on campus. Oh, and the Student Union, but that was probably the busiest place on campus most of the time.

She had visited the library too, hadn’t she? The group she was touring around campus with hadn’t gone far in, just to the study space on the first floor, but it seemed nice enough. It had felt warmer than the other buildings she was used to around campus, in a good way. Storms, at the very least the walk there would hopefully help her calm down a bit.

_But it’ll be super awkward if I just walk there and back without doing anything, I mean, what if someone-_

_Nope, nope, shutting that one down. I made a choice, I’m going._

_***_

When Shallan finally made it to the library, about a 10 minute walk from her dorm, she was sweating _so_ much. She was fighting the urge to check herself, to see if she had sweat through her clothes anywhere, but she assumed by this point she had. Late summer in Alethkar was _way_ too hot. Granted, summer in Jah Keved was too hot too, but that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable. She hadn’t gone outside much as a kid.

A good portion of the people she had passed on her way here had dark splotches on their clothes, but on all of them they had look, like, athletic and hot. She knew on her it just looked gross. But she would deal with that later.

She stepped into the air-conditioned atmosphere, greeted by a moment of calm as her body adjusted to the cooler air. That moment was, unfortunately, cut short as Shallan looked around the open first floor of the library.

This place was packed with people. In her mind during her walk over here, she had been picturing this room as it had been during her tour, empty tables framed by dark wood bookshelves and rolling whiteboards neatly stacked away against the walls. But apparently a _lot_ of people had the same idea she did.

Worse, most of the people sat in large clusters, and the sound of all the chattering made her want to turn around and leave right then. It probably wasn’t any louder than the Gavilar Student Union was most of the time, but Shallan was already stressed and had come here looking for peace.

_It makes sense idiot, of course the library’s busy on weekends._

_But I just wanted somewhere peaceful! Is there nowhere quiet on this storming campus? Almighty, this-_

She could feel herself getting overstimulated, and forced herself to resist the urge to clamp her hands over her ears and have a full panic attack right here in this doorway.

_Look, it sucks, I know. But I’ll move on. This library has four floors, right? One of them’s got to be a bit more quiet than this one._

She winced a little as someone across the room barked out a laugh, but managed to pull herself back into the present in the process. It was worth a shot, so she turned to the staircase just a few paces left of the entryway, letting out a soft sigh of relief as she left the first floor for the much quieter stairwell.

***

Kaladin liked the second floor of the library. It was peaceful in a way few other places on this campus were. It wasn’t quite quiet, with the constant hisses and growls of the coffee shop, and the broken air conditioner over the conference table they had moved onto this floor when they bought new tables for the first floor study spaces, but it was peaceful. Maybe it was just because there were always fewer people up here.

You would think the place would be busy, seeing as there were only 4 or 5 coffee shops on campus, but the student union was close enough that most people went there. And the first floor had all the nice tables and study spaces and a fresh coat of paint; the third and fourth had the bookshelves and rules about staying quiet. The second floor existed in a sort of liminal space between the two, which, apparently, not a lot of people liked.

Suited Kaladin just fine. If only he didn’t have to work here.

Ok, he always gave an outward show of hating working here, but there really was little to complain about. Few customers, decent pay, and working on campus made the commute from classes to work much easier. Only reason he had snagged this job was they had wanted someone with experience working as a barista and, as it turned out, most of the lighteyes at Kolin State didn’t have much work experience. So he had gotten this easy as crem job, and it was pretty rare he had to work with storming lighteyes.

If he did have to work with one of them every day, it would still have been a pretty miserable job, despite the great workplace. But instead, he was usually paired up with one of his roommates, Lopen. Only reason _he_ had gotten a job here was that the university couldn’t figure out where else to shove him. It would have been bad press if the supposably progressive Kholinar State had denied a handicapped, international student on financial aid a job, so they stuck him working the least busy cash register on campus.

Working the easiest job on campus with one of his roommates? And his coworker handled all the talking to customers? It was great. Honestly, Kaladin was scared to think when the other boot was going to drop, but he tried to push that thought away as far as he could. It was good now. He would do his best to keep it that way.

He was crouched over behind the counter organizing some of the cabinets’ extra supplies into neat rows when he heard the door to the stairwell opening. No voices though, so it was probably just one person, thank the Almighty. The worst parts of his days were usually when a small mob of people from the first floor decided they all wanted coffee. But he wasn’t sure what business would be like the first real weekend of the semester.

“Hey Gancho!”

Kaladin reflexively winced a bit at the greeting. Some lighteyes were put off by just about anything foreign, and he could hear a touch of confusion in the customer’s voice.

“Umm, hello?” She seemed to pause for a second before continuing. “Is this floor usually this empty?”

Huh. Kaladin heard a hint of his accent in her voice, maybe Jah Keved, though it sounded faint, like she was reflexively trying to sound more Alethi.

“Oh, sure gon. As far as places to study, this one? Fantastic.”

He couldn’t see Lopen’s face, but Kaladin could visualize the exaggerated look of satisfaction he used to drive home this kind of point. Part of him wanted to tell Lopen to knock it off, that kind of talk would only mean they would have _more_ customers. But telling your coworkers things like that out loud probably wasn’t the best way to stay employed.

“Oh um, alright. That’s good.” Almighty, this woman sounded like she was entirely composed of nerves. “Oh, I guess I should order something.”

At this point, Kaladin couldn’t quite keep up the act of sorting this one cabinet. So he stood up, brushing himself down, and turned to start setting up the hotstoppers he had been in the cabinet in the first place for. As he turned, he glanced at the woman, and had to keep himself from laughing. Her accent may have been faint, but her bright red, loose hair and pale skin were _not_. Her eyes flicked from Lopen to him just as he finished the movement and put his back to her. Bright, pale blue, of course.

“Uh, I’ll just have a medium women’s coffee, please.”

Now Kaladin really had to stop himself from laughing.

He risked another look back, this time at Lopen. He had his characteristic jovial look still plastered on, but Kaladin could tell he was _very_ confused.

“Uh, sorry gancho,” Lopen replied, somehow still sounding friendly, “here at Kolin State, we don’t really separate our food like that anymore?”

Kaladin realized he was staring, but before he turned back around, he noticed that the woman looked possibly more confused than the Lopen had.

“I don’t think we _gender_ food here anymore, see,” Lopen added, “Campus don’t really operate like that...”

After a long, very awkward pause, Kaladin chimed in over his shoulder.

“She means a latte, one shot. Usually with four pumps caramel.”

Lopen hadn’t worked in a coffee shop before he had come to campus, but these were the types of things you were taught for when you had to deal with old people who didn’t feel like changing with the times or, apparently, sheltered girls from Jah Keved.

“Umm, yeah. I think there’s usually caramel.”

“Oh sure gancho! I got it.”

Kaladin began to tune out the remainder of the conversation, getting to work on the latte. Lopen handed him a copy of the receipt, and Kaladin read the name ‘Shallan’ before throwing it away. He could remember that.

As he was making the latte, Kaladin was faced with a choice. Did he want this girl back here? He had worked as a barista before, he could ruin a latte intentionally. Not badly enough to make them lodge a complaint, just enough that they preferred to go a few minutes out of their way to get their coffee from the student union instead.

His first thought was obviously yes. She had ordered a “women’s coffee,” that didn’t speak volumes for her progressiveness. But as he thought about it, he looked over at her, sitting seemingly as far away from the counter as possible while still within eyeshot. She seemed to be sketching something, so probably a design student. Which wasn’t the worst type of person.

And she seemed like she might be nice enough, despite her blunder. He knew plenty of lighteyes who would have responded to that whole situation with much more yelling. And… well, he decided that she was the type of customer he wanted back. He could always ruin her next drink if he needed to.

Kaladin finished up the drink, adding just a touch extra foam, and took it up to the counter. He probably shouldn’t. He had just decided he wanted her back here next time she wanted coffee. But he couldn’t help himself, it was just too easy.

“I’ve got a ‘woman’s coffee’ for a ‘Shallan’?”

Both the other people on the floor glanced over with that blank stare of indifference that most students wore most of the time. He kept a blank, deadpan face, eyebrows raised ever so slightly as she walked over to him. She kept eye contact with him the entire walk to the counter, a sardonic grimace across her face, not betraying a hint of the nervousness she seemed to have when she was talking with Lopen. Guess she had gathered herself while he was making a drink.

As she picked it up, Kaladin saw the familiar look of someone about to rebut with another quip. But even as he prepared a joke about how it wasn’t 673 anymore, she broke eye contact and grabbed her coffee. Was she that pissed off?

After she sat down, he risked a few more glances at her. At first he was worried she’d notice, but she seemed invested in whatever she was drawing. Good news, she seemed to like the latte, from what he could see. And she didn’t seem all that mad when she sat back down. For a moment he genuinely thought he might have offended her. Lighteyes could be like that sometimes. But, from what he could tell, it didn’t seem she had taken the jab to heart.

Good.

***

“Don’t even worry about it,” Adolin shouted over his shoulder, instantly realizing it might have been a touch too loud for a library. Not that stopped anyone else here. “You know I’ve got to pass all my classes this semester.”

He would probably pass his classes anyway he just needed an out right now.

“Come on dude,” Jakamav shouted back from the circle of people Adolin usually hung out with, which he had just excused himself from. “This is your second year of college! You can’t keep letting your storming _dad_ control your life!”

“Easy for you to say, your dad’s in another _princedom._ I have to worry if mine will walk through the door just about everywhere I go.”

The small group shook their heads and threw him a few more lighthearted jabs, but they let him go without much fight. He had warned them at the start of the semester that his dad was breathing down his neck this year, and he wouldn’t be able to hang with them as often. Not that that was true. Honestly, dad didn’t really care much about his grades at all, and he had yet to fail a class.

But hanging out with people like them was draining. He had decided he needed more space this year, and Renarin had come up with this plan. It was a pretty good excuse, since most people assumed it was the case anyway, whether he lied about it or not. And now, he could go relax without them thinking he was weird. Some of the girls had even seemed to feel sorry for him when he had told the group. He didn’t try all that hard to stop _that_.

But where to go, now that he was free? He had been thinking about hanging out in the student union for the rest of the day, but that would probably be where his social group ended up when they got hungry, and he didn’t really feel like running into them again later. He had to go somewhere there was little to no chance of them ever showing up. Somewhere that, in his two years and one week hanging out with them, they had never gone. So he beelined his way to the library’s stairwell.

***

“Wait, there’s a coffee shop up here!?”

Whoops. He had said that out loud. Adolin resisted the urge to shrink back into himself after breaking the silence he had walked into. It would go better if he played it off, so he nodded to the couple of people on this floor, now watching him from their notes and laptops. One girl, he noticed though, didn’t even look up from her sketchbook.

He walked his way up to the counter of the coffee shop. He fully had not realized there was a coffee shop right on the second floor of the library. Somehow he had spent years on this campus and never realized it existed, much less gotten a drink here. But after so rudely calling out it’s existence, he figured he might as well order something.

The guy working the counter, a Herdazian dude by the look of it, was already looking at him with a massive smile across his face. He was leaning over the counter, balancing on his one elbow. Huh, one arm. Adolin tried to avoid staring at where his other arm should have been. Or look at the spot at all.

“Hey gancho, what can I do ya for?”

Adolin’s usual order was already on his lips before he remembered his friends weren’t behind him in line. He could order whatever he wanted.

“I’ll have an iced chai latte, two pumps caramel, if you could. Oh, and almond milk with that.”

The Herdazian, Lopen according to his nametag, just smiled same as he had been since Adolin first saw him as he punched the order in. But Adolin did earn a glance from his coworker, a tall, dark haired man who had up until this point been focused on organizing the counter along the back wall.

As Adolin met his eyes, dark, so he couldn’t make out their color from here, he watched them narrow ever so slightly. The frown the barista had been wearing before deepened, almost looking curious.

_Great._

Adolin flashed him a smile then, before he could make any comments, turned back to Lopen.

“Can I get a name for that order?”

“Adolin”

His eyes flicked back to the tall, darkeyed boy, but he seemed to have already started on the drink, and Adolin didn’t catch any sign of recognition at the name.

“Alright, thank you, have a good day!”

“you too!”

He gave one last smile to Lopen, then turned to find a place to sit, spotting an empty section along one wall. It would be weird to sit too close to someone else when there were so many unused tables, right?

He started to set up shop around a small table, sliding the two chairs next to each other and throwing his backpack onto one. As he was in the process of unpacking his tablet, books, notebooks, and all other manner of things that he had been waiting to work on, he heard the last stages of his drink being prepared, and saw out of the corner of his eye as the darkeyes, whose name he had yet to learn, walked up to the open section of the counter, cup in hand.

“Got a drink for Adolin?”

Surprisingly, Adolin heard a mutter from his left, the first sound he had heard any of the students make, from the girl with the sketchbook. He couldn’t make out the words.

He ignored whatever _that_ was and walked up to the counter. The barista still wore the same scowl, though it looked more passive than about anything specific. Adolin caught sight of his nametag as he walked up, longer than he had expected. ‘Kaladin.’ Weird. He just looked him in the eye, flashed the same smile he had given Lopen, and grabbed the chai. One last quick nod of thanks, and he returned to his mostly assembled study space.

***

Adolin tried _really_ hard to keep focused on schoolwork for as long as possible. He got through almost all of the calc work for the weekend, so he was on a good pace. But it was at that point he had decided to give himself a quick break, glance at some of the new folios that had dropped earlier today. But _that_ had sent him down a rabbit trail that he never quite recovered from. About an hour into ignoring his Shin Philosophy essay, he realized, in all likelihood, he wasn’t going to get much productive work done for a little while.

So, now freed from pretending he was _just about_ to get back to work, he let himself relax. He switched his music to a calmer, acoustic playlist and twisted his legs onto the chair next to him, tablet with _several_ tabs of folios still open propped up on his thighs. As he settled back against the wall, he allowed his eyes to wander around the room and people-watch a bit, in between pages.

The way he was sitting, his eyes often naturally landed on the girl with the sketchbook. He didn’t recognize her. Which was not, by any means, anything at all. This campus was huge, he only accidentally ran into someone he knew maybe twice a week, tops. But there weren’t too many people on campus with red hair like that, much less that long, and worn loose. And he definitely had never had a class with her. He would have remembered her if he had, regardless of the size of the lecture hall.

As he watched her, in between scrolling through twitter, he noticed she was still sketching, perched up on her chair with her legs crossed bellow her. A few times it had looked like she was working on writing something, and the open laptop in front of her indicated she probably had done some other stuff when he wasn’t looking, but eight times out of ten when he looked at her, she was sketching. She kept glancing up, looking to the coffee shop counter as she drew.

He traced her eyeline, but couldn’t figure out what exactly she was looking at.

Eventually, Adolin managed to convince himself to get back to work on actually productive things. He worked on the weekend’s homework once more, until he gave way again to scrolling through folios and twitter. The cycle repeated a few times until he checked off his essay on his “preconceived notions regarding Shin philosophy” in his planner and realized there was no more work he needed to do.

In his 2 years at KSU, Adolin wasn’t sure if he had _ever_ finished that much homework in one sitting. Normally, he had to peel himself away from his friends at the last minute and turn in something acceptable. But now he had a full night and another day left in the weekend, and no assignments to work on.

Looking up, he realized that he had probably timed it well too. Judging by the way the baristas were cleaning everything down, it looked like the coffee shop was closing up for the night, and Adolin was pretty sure the library closed at some point on Fridays and Saturdays.

He called out to the talkative one of the two baristas, Lopen.

“Hey, what time does the library close?”

“On non-weeknights? 10:00pm gancho!”

The girl with red hair looked up at that, and as she did Adolin realized that she and him were the only two still studying on this floor at this point.

“Yeah, you should probably head out gon, the cleaning crew won’t force you out, but they can give one hell of a stink eye, chase you right out the door it will.”

As he spoke, the herdazian and his coworker apparently finished up closing down the coffee shop, as they grabbed bags and started headed towards the stairwell.

It was 5 till 10 already, so Adolin began to pack up his strewn about assortment of notebooks and pencils. Form the sound of it, though he didn’t look up to check, the redheaded girl was doing much of the same.

He looked up, bag messily packed, as Lopen threw open the door, chatting with Kaladin a little too loudly, and with a surprising amount of familiarity. Adolin had assumed Kaladin wasn’t much for conversation, but Lopen was talking his ear off anyway. The herdazian didn’t seem like he needed a conversation to be all that two sided. Honestly, neither of them really did.

But as the two of them reached the stairwell, Lopen already through the door, voice echoing off the bare metal and concrete, Kaladin turned around. He seemed to scan the room, until he made eye contact with Adolin. He held Adolin’s gaze for a moment. His facial expression was completely blank, save for that ever-present shadow of a frown. Then, best Adolin could tell, Kaladin looked over to the girl, before turning and following his friend down the stairs.

The clatter of hard soled shoes on metal broke the relative silence Adolin only now realized that had settled in that moment. It was only a brief second, but it seemed to shift the entire air of the night. It hadn’t been unwelcoming, quite the opposite. It seemed to Adolin like an acknowledgement that the three of them had crossed paths and, for some reason or other, they would again.

“No wonder my coffee was so bitter, he must have looked at it a bit too hard while he was making it.”

Adolin’s laugh at the comment made the girl jump. Apparently, in the moment, she had forgotten he was here. Realizing that, with the coffee shop workers gone, it was just the two of them on the floor, he quickly slung his backpack over his shoulder. He should probably leave now, so he didn’t make the girl any more uncomfortable than he was sure she already was. He _definitely_ didn’t want to take his time and end up accidentally following her out.

So, that in mind, he stood up, slipped his arm through the other strap of his backpack, and began to make his way to the stairwell, all in one fluid motion. Realizing that they had sort of interacted, him laughing at her little quip and all, it would probably seem rude to just ignore her as he left. But as he walked past her, his mind was blank on anything to say, so he just turned and flashed a smile. That usually worked for a lot of people.

She raised an eyebrow, face twisted in response, but Adolin was sure he saw a hint of amusement under it all. Turning back towards the stairwell, he thought he could hear the quite hum of vacuum cleaners from the floor above them, presumably already empty of students. Adolin opened the door to the stairwell, instantly feeling the rush of air. Somehow warmer, but also not as… he couldn’t put his finger on it. But he could only notice the difference for a second, before he became acclimated. Whatever the difference was, he preferred the second floor.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know. None of the three ever say a word to each other. Again, this was gonna be chapter one of a much larger story, but I just can't get chapter two started. Sorry again about that.
> 
> However, if you did enjoy this, please leave a comment! If you really want to see more of my work, you can find me on tumblr @coinshotmisting, and that's about it. Not really a social media kind of person. Thanks for taking the time to read!


End file.
